Prayer is a very difficult topic to address and understand even as a Christian, and as an unbeliever it is easy to see how it could get confusing.
8 If your child were dying, and I hope that never happens, would just pray for them or would you take them to a doctor? And if you'd do both, which one do you think has more of an impact?
9 Whose prayers does God answer? And if it's ultimately His Will, why bother praying?
10 If you have cancer, what would help you more: Certain drugs, or prayer?
11 If you had an amputated limb, would prayer ever bring it back?
12 If you have an exam coming up, what would contribute more to a higher score: Prayer or more studying?
13 If you prayed for me over YouTube right now, do you think I would know it?
14 What matters to God more: The quantity of people praying or the quality of their prayers? If quantity matters, shouldn't the most popular team always win the Super Bowl? If quality matters, why do people you love sometimes die no matter what you do?
15 Is it possible that your prayers have no supernatural effect and only serve to make you feel better?
16 Would you ever admit it if that were true?
What we know for sure from Bible passages is
(a) God is sovereign (Psalm 135:6)
(b) God is moved by our prayers (1 John 5:14)
These two seem to be irreconcilable, but I don't think they need to be. Our tendency is to think that God is going to do whatever he is going to do, and answer our prayers as He sees fit. While this is true it is not to the exclusion of our request, in fact He assures us that our prayers are valuable to Him and will at times actually affect change.
The Bible records times when prayers actually changed God's mind. Two of these that I can think of off the top of my head are the petition of Abraham for God to spare his nephew Lot (Gen 18) and when Moses convinces God not to wipe the Israelite off the face of the earth (Exodus 32).
While this is said, we know that God doesn't change His mind. He does what He has always planned to do. The best way to reconcile this is to say that God's will was to change his mind.
I think that this is entirely feasible, and I think that this is a small picture of what prayer does in the grand scheme of things. We must understand that God is outside of time, so our prayers have factored into God's decision making for as long as He has existed. God has heard our prayers for eternity, every word. Because God is sovereign over everything I think we can safely say that He ordained our prayers and our requests. He does not hold these requests lightly.
The truth is that God's sovereignty should be a motivating factor for us to pray. If He was not in ultimate control of all things, if His will was not set in place before time began, than He would not be powerful enough to affect any change on our behalf. What we need to realize is that God is fighting for us. We don't want to believe this when things like cancer, death and trials happen, because in our tiny worlds our comfort is most important If we submit ourselves to God's will we will find that there is a greater joy that awaits in glorifying the only one worth the glory and refusing to demand He glorify us through answering our prayers to our specifications. It's all a matter of who we believe to be God: the creator of the universe and author of life itself, or us. Should we be serving God, or should he be serving us?
So is prayer effective? If indeed God is sovereign, and I could argue many reasons to believe this, then prayer is effective. Not only are miracles possible through prayer, but prayer is more effective then any other form of activity.
Should this keep us from being active. Not at all. In fact, the Bible has very harsh words to speak against laziness. However, if God created the world and sustains it by His hands it is foolish to think that our actions have greater effect than His.
The Bible also has harsh words for those that demand miracles of God. During Jesus's ministry there were many people who either only followed Him only for his miracles, or who found excuses to hate him despite His miracles. If you are a true believer in God, miracles and wonders are not as important as God's glory and your relationship with Him. Jesus often deliberately alienated the people who were following him only for the things they could get from him (John 6) and chose not to do miracles for those who He knew were not going to believe (Matt 13). We also see this working out in reality when Christ raised Lazarus from the dead and the spiritual leaders of the day had no problem believing that the miracle had happened and were more interested in their reputations than the fact that God might be walking among them. (John 11:45-54) While we often hear that people want to see miracles before they can accept Christ, the truth is that if shown these signs most would still find reason to turn away. God is not a beggar or a sales-man. If you don't want Him as the son of God who takes away the sins of the world, why would He lower Himself to your genie? If we can demand that we be loved for our own sake, why do we think that God is only worthy of our love if He serve us? If anyone deserves to be loved only on the basis of who they are, it is God.
I will address one last thing before I end. What kind of prayers will God listen too? If you are asking this then you are looking at prayer and God all wrong. God is out for HIS glory. Your prayers serve many purposes, and many you will never see or understand in this lifetime. They draw us closer to God, they teach us compassion for our fellow humans, they give us hope during times of trouble and YES they move the heart of God. There is no right or wrong prayers because the spirit of God moves in us as we pray. The Bible records some of the most heart-wrenching and real prayers to the Lord and encourages us to do the same. These however are conversations between a father and child. While some guidelines are given for how we should pray, and some sins do hamper those prayers, in general all God wants from His children is that they talk to Him. If we misunderstand this we will find ourselves attempting to manipulate that relationship for our own gain. God will not allow that any more then a good parent would. God, like any good parent, will place relationship and the good of the child before the momentary happiness of that child.
If you are not a believer though, the same does not apply for you. Every prayer answered for an unbeliever is a act of grace beyond what you can imagine. It is the loving hand held out from a Father to the people who brutally killed His son and sing songs celebrating the slaughter. You cannot expect God to lower himself to respond to the demands of such people.
There are so many more things that could be said about prayer, and so many more resources to find those on, but for the sake of brevity I will leave it here. This I will say, if you have questions about prayer there is no one better to ask then God Himself. Ask those questions, open the Bible. Come truly ready to listen and get answers, and you might be surprised what you find.
If you enjoyed reading this be sure to look back over the last few posts where earlier questions were addressed. Be sure to keep updated as well as I work on my Christian non-fiction book on Satan and Demons. I will be updating with the next installment in two weeks. You can find me on twitter at @J23hawkE and on FB at https://www.facebook.com/JPurrazzi. I hope you will keep me in your prayers as I study the Word and seek to glorify God through my writing.
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